BCS Bowl Predictions: Top Playmakers Every Scout Is Watching

While the 2011 college football bowl season is all about fun and celebration, it’s a time for serious big-game scouting from NFL teams.

Players like Trent Richardson and Morris Claiborne are first-round picks this season, but exactly where they go could be decided by their performances in the BCS national championship game.

All of the following players will be under heavy surveillance during this bowl season and their performances will be heavily scrutinized. The NFL will have it no other way.

Trent Richardson

The Alabama Crimson Tide will be playing on the biggest stage of them all in college football when they take on LSU in the National Championship. That includes running back Trent Richardson.

Football scouts throughout the NFL will have all hands on deck analyzing the BCS title game, with many of the high first-round teams looking hard at the Crimson Tide’s stellar back.

A team that will have a high pick in the first round like the Cleveland Browns may consider drafting Richardson and allowing Peyton Hillis and his trouble to walk.

Morris Claiborne

In the same National Championship game as Richardson is LSU defensive back Morris Claiborne. While Tyrann Mathieu may have stolen the headlines, it is Claiborne with the brighter NFL future.

Claiborne is the size the NFL scouts are looking for and his frame lends him to grow in strength. What scouts will see against Alabama will be his ability to play on different wide receivers and in all kinds of coverages.

The Minnesota Vikings need help in their secondary more than anything else and wherever they pick in the early first round, they will take Claiborne.

Case Keenum

There may be no better pure college football quarterback than Case Keenum in the history of the sport, but there are serious questions about his ability to transfer them over to the NFL.

There is bound to be a team that feels they can mold Keenum into the next late-round pick that becomes Tom Brady, but odds are he won’t.

With a stellar performance against the tough Penn State Nittany Lions defense in the TicketCity Bowl, Keenum could increase his draft stock.

Check back for more on the NCAA football as it comes, and check out Bleacher Report’s College Football Page to get your fill of college football.

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